Jason Black – Hot Water Music ‘Searching for (De)light’

Jason Black, the long-serving bassist of the globally adored Southern Gospel punk rockers Hot Water Music is in a reflective yet joyful mood when Wall Of Sound connect with him at his home in Florida.He has just finished dinner and is strangely calm considering the touring journey himself, Chuck Ragan (guitar/vocals), Chris Wollard (guitar/vocals), Chris Cresswell (guitar/vocals) and drummer George Rebelo are undertaking. The five-piece are utilising almost the entirety of May and June to tour the USA in celebration of their 30^th anniversary and the preparations for this monumental achievement have been perhaps a little unsettling; as he explains.

“Even after all these years, it is still an erratic time of arranging so many things with the same questions: What have we forgotten to do? What do we need to do? But we are still very excited, that’s for sure.”

Hazarding a rather educated guess, but with three decades worth of music to reexamine, one might assume that crafting a setlist is a rather difficult task to say the least?Jason laughs vibrantly – “Yeah, it's kind of an ongoing process. As far as getting that setlist figured out; well, we just did a quick UK tour, which was helpful because we got a little bit of a skeleton that we're working with. But I mean, we don't ever do the same set every night; we will get into a broad scope so-to-say. We try to start with this and then with this, and have bits and bobs that we kind of pull in and pull out or whatever. Essentially, it is trying to do something different every night for us that is just as much for the folks that come out.”Are there any deep Hot Water' cuts that are perhaps close to unbearable to consider including?Mr Black smiles coyly in appreciation before addressing the question - “I mean, there's definitely a few from the first singles collection album release we did. When we did our short tour for turning 20, we pulled in one song off that. And it wasn't like the worst thing in the world... But a painful amount of people didn't know what the hell we were playing.” He admits hysterically before continuing – “So, it was sort of like: 'Ok, we've gone to these great lengths to relearn this song that we find horrible and no one even cares.' I mean, a few people did but most people were like: ‘It's cool, that track was old’. And we're just like: ‘OK, we're not doing that again'. We’ll go back to Fuel For The Hate, but anything prior to that I think is probably dead at this point. You just never know, you get older, and you hear these: ‘Play more old stuff’ demands, and then you play more old stuff, and no one cares or some shit? (Chuckling) You never quite get it right with people.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWsgxkcxX2YPutting aside the song selections that never seem to satisfy admirers, it is arguably transparent that HWM are responsible for some of the best cuts of punk-fused-post hardcore ever composed. With ChuckRagan’s rather unique gruff emotional delivery of soulful anthems amplified by Chris Wollard’s enlightening energy, the band have not only established themselves as beloved punk rockers from Florida – they have been undoubtedly influential. Their 10^th studio album VOWS released May 10^th via Equal Vision Records and Cooking Vinyl (review here) more than represents this inspirational relation; it is practically autobiographical in nature.The LP hosts guests from different parts of the quintet’s timeline and the creative unions are beyond remarkable. For example, the track ‘Fences’ which features long-time friends and retrospectively, Hot Water’s younger brothers, Californian experimental rockers Thrice who first toured with the Floridians in 2001. It therefore seemed necessary to ask Jason if a collaboration was brought up between the two outfits many years ago, or if the idea arose during the song’s creation?“It was a fresh idea in reference to this song. Looking back, it had to have been pretty recently in our minds because Chuck (Ragan) sang on the ‘Blood Clots And Black Holes’ track for The Artist In The Ambulance reissue. So we were definitely keen on having those guys on a track if we're going to do something new. Because we've remained friends and love each other. And these days, we don't do that much together or see each other that often. So it was kind of nice to do something together like that. It felt cool for sure and we’re super happy that they were down to do it; the best nicest dudes ever.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL6mUdb-7GcHe elaborates further – “We pretty much just sent the track over to Teppei Teranishi(guitarist / keyboardist for Thrice), and we were basically like: ‘Go for some keyboards and some texture stuff on here, because you're really great at that!’ Then they got back to us saying that everyone wanted to sing on it too. Truthfully, we wanted that too, the ‘gang vocals’ idea - so all the dudes got involved. Now, of course we're all like: ‘We should go on tour together!’ And we would ALL love to go on tour together. So hopefully we make that happen at some point in time.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlL3_LEbX8The compelling pièce de resistance of this monumental LP is ‘After The Impossible’. This illustrious new single that Dallas Green (Alexisonfire, City & Colour) has leant his angelic vocal brilliance to in a contrasting duet with Mr Ragan’s rugged and husky croon is simply, spectacular. Its near unbelievable majesty is so intoxicating that it passionately approaches the “timeless” aura in its composition. Hot Water Music are undoubtedly known for their punk-dreamer-radiance, although these four minutes would even astound Bruce Springsteen, in the best way possible.“When we finally got that song together, which was kind of tricky, because through the writing process originally, the bridge was the chorus, and the chorus was the bridge. However, when we started, it was just like a little verse idea that Chuck (Ragan) had from like a voice memo and who knows how long ago? It was also the kind of the thing where we're like: ‘Does anyone have anything left? Are there any weird ideas that we haven't dug up? No.’ So we started working on it. Brian (McTernan, producer), Chris (Cresswell) and Chuck worked on some of the stuff acoustically overnight and kind of brought it back in and once we finally got it arranged, and it all sat well, then we started tracking it.”Jason then recollects the experience in a vivid fashion and delightfully divulges – “I definitely will take credit for the idea; I don't know if I was the first person to say it out loud. But, I was like: ‘Dal (Green) would sound awesome on this!’ Because it is right in his wheelhouse.”He adds more details enthusiastically – “We have been friends with Alexisonfire forever and toured together and we get along really well! We had also just played their Born & Raised Festival in 2022; so we had seen each other recently. Essentially, I just reached out and he told us he was on tour at the time. He then advised me when he was getting home and he asked me to send the song and he would see how he goes with it all. When he sent it back, we found out he had done this amazing duet! We were honestly just hoping for backups - that one came out PHENOMENAL.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K13bWQt2WRsThere is a quote by Grammy Award winning jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves that reads - “Art is a direct reflection of the life you live. What you experience comes out in your work.”After 30 years of gravel-soul-punk virtue, Hot Water Music possess an artistic prestige that has immeasurable value. They have experienced more than a lifetime of service to this alternative genre of music; conclusively, they are trailblazers and above influential. A great showcase of this narrative is the film clip for the single ‘Menace’ that gives incredible insight into the five-piece’s history, however they are only short fragments. A final question was more than warranted to ask Mr Black if a Hot Water Music documentary would ever be a project that might eventuate?“That's probably very close to done. We were working on that somewhat in tandem with the record, and we've been working on it for the last couple of years. Jesse Korman and a crew who have done all the videos for us for the last few records are part of the project. I think everything is shot and I believe they're just compiling all this stuff now and kind of putting it together. So hopefully by the end of this year, that will be the cap to the 30th; that we will have a proper documentary.”What an amazing artistic reflection this will be of the life Hot Water Music have lived.Interview by Will Oakeshott@teenwolfwill

Vows is out now. Stream here

Hot Water Music – Vows tracklisting:

1. Menace2. Searching For Light3. Burn Forever4. After The Impossible (feat. Dallas Green)5. Remnants (feat. Daniel Fang and Brendan Yates)6. Chewing On Broken Glass7. Fences (feat. Thrice)8. Side Of The Road9. Wildfire (feat. Popeye Vogelsang)10. Bury Us All11. Touch The Sun12. Much Love (feat. The Interrupters)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmRpWhC7_bw